Descent.
I am descended from a mostly European blend of people, all of whom have lived in the Southern Tip of Appalachia for hundreds of years. This area, the Southern tip of Appalachia, includes the mountainous areas of Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, North Georgia and even a little bit of the Northwest corner of South Carolina.
Most of the people who settled in these areas had arrived in North America in the early 1600s and 1700s, and gone there from the Northeastern and Southern ports in search of new lives, religious freedom, gold, and land. They met the local Indian tribes, fought and warred with them, and later, sometimes intermarried with them. They had a completely different view of them that people who lived outside the area. These people were, for the most part, farmers. They hunted, farmed, went to church, married young and produced babies. They mostly lived off the land, and mostly that was a good way to live, at least until there was a hard Winter, or a Summer when the crops failed, or a bad round of the flu swept the area, killing off many members of the population. These people could have remained in this part of the country, largely undiscovered and undisturbed except for the incursions of war, when some would be conscripted to fight for one cause or another. And they fought. They were fiercely patriotic, even when they were largely destitute, and brely able to provide for themselves.
In the long run, though — several hundred years — the trouble with living off the land in a remote and rugged area is that there tends to be no cushion. No way to lessen the blows of bad weather and bad luck. In the early part of the twentieth century, the Federal Government came in and said the people needed help. They said that building dams would stop seasonal flooding and provide water in times of drought. That would at least bring some seasonal stability, and electricity, to the area. It was considered “progress,” despite the fact that it displaced hundreds of communities and thousands of people.
At about the same time, factories and mills began moving down from the Northeast. So the families that had been displaced, and/or those that just needed to save the family farm, flocked to the factories and mills for work, and ways to have a more stabile existence. That’s what my grandparents did.
They were part of an entire generation that left the farms, either partially or completely, and moved into ready-made mill villages. They got homes in exchange for working t the mills. Homes with mortgages that allowed them to eventually own the homes, and jobs in the mills that gave them the money to pay the afore-said mortgages.
Life in large portions of Southern Appalachia became defined by shiftwork and production quotas. Families grew, and parents made sure their children had places in the mills waiting for them when they finished high school. It was a simple life of sorts, not at all unlike farm life, except that it was generally more stabile, more predictable, and came with more comforts, like insurance, company picnics, and overtime. Even the Great Depression, when it hit the United States, was somewhat cushioned by the fact that the mills were busy turning out products for the Second Great War.
All that abundance that came in with the mills was not without its downsides, though. Many members of the first generation — the ones that had moved from the farms — continued eating and living like they had on the farms, despite living lives that, although perhaps no easier, were far more sedentary. And that, plus habits like smoking and over eating, eventually killed all but the most hearty members of that generation — at least almost all the males. Heart disease and clogged arteries, almost unheard of on the farm, claimed otherwise healthy men in their fifties and sixties.
Emphysema, brought on by smoking and the bad air in the mills, took more people, and cancers, which probably existed, but no one knew what they were, took even more. The result was an entire generation of widows, all of whom lost their husbands to the “lifestyle” that was millwork. That lifestyle, and the dangers inherent to it, continued into the second generation. I lost my dad, and saw many of my parents’ friends and neighbors succumb to the same health issues. It was not until my own generation that medical advances solved some of the problems, and healthier living (plus new drugs) solved more.
That was the good news. The downside, for my generation, the last of the baby boomers living and working in Southern Appalachia, was that the mills began closing, and all the jobs began moving overseas. Once again, the mountain people faced tough economic times. And although the “service” industry has taken a bit of the bite out of the area’s economic depression, it still suffers from higher than usual unemployment, lower overall education, and lower household incomes. Modern times and the twenty first century have created more diversity among these people, but, to me, the overall future outlook for many of them still appears grim. I hate to see it. Hate to see family and friends face a less than certain future in times that are more complex than ever.
I have to wonder, what will be the next lifestyle revolution for the peoples at the Southern tip of Appalachia? Will it come as a large scale change as it did when families left Europe for America, or when families left their farms for the mills? What does the future hold for that great, and unique part of the country? And when will nature, humans, or human government decide that it is once again time to intervene.…